Derivatives and Wire Traps

Raj Rajaratnam did job interviews at a topless club and required male traders who made bad bets to wear lingerie to work the next day.

By

Stewart Pinkerton

June 16, 2013 1:48 p.m. ET

Business mischief is best captured by books that read like novels, with colorful characters committing outrageous acts of excess that defy even minimal standards of ethics, morality and criminal law. Though readers may know how things will turn out, a major attraction of the genre is watching the crooks take nasty face plants in full view.

Who knows how many bad guys get away with it? Thus the appeal of "Barbarians at the Gate," the benchmark epic by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar on the RJR Nabisco leveraged...